Winter Coziness

Accumulated all the garden catalogs into one nice, friendly stack today and made myself a mental note to remember to take them upstairs with me when I take the boys off to bed for naps in the afternoons. (One of my cherished reading windows!)

We're having roast chicken for dinner, side-lined by sage and chicken broth soaked quinoa. I decided to try halving a clementine and sqeezing that over it as well stuffing the cavity with a few cinnamon sticks in addition to the usual salt and drizzle of olive oil. Brussel sprouts with generous melted butter will be the final dish and a hearty ciabatta from our local bakery to boot. A spent all vacation making ciabatta so it will be good to compare to our amazing local experts for context. After a while I wasn't so sure my critiques were even making sense, let alone on target. Such a nice cozy winter dinner.

The baby is kicking left and right these days although never furiously. I am imagining that we have a gentle soul on our hands but maybe that's just wistful thinking based on the fact that we've got ourselves two high spirited, opinionated young gents already. The grass is always greener! This afternoon Ru really connected that there's a small person in there and asked, "Is it Dee?" And the obvious reply to my "No dear...its not him." was "Well it was last time!" The wheels are turning and he's trying to figure out what in the world is going on. The final, "Who is it then?" was a bit confusing to answer....I don't know seemed a bit flat although honest....I always know, I'm the mommy. He was kind of dubious, not sure if I was hiding my information, really out of the loop or just twisting the tale in some clever grown-up way. It is a very funny idea...helping to create someone, being their mother, talking about them all the time and yet not having any idea who they are. Whoever this next small one is, he or she is very well loved, much chatted to and well anticipated...that much is clear.

Took the boys outdoors this afternoon after our grocery run to show them some rabbit tracks in the snow that I noticed from my bedroom window this morning. Ru is quite a leaper these days but he could never quite make the span of the hops between bunny tracks. He was very impressed. Super fun to have enough snow to walk through the yard in the glittering sunshine, while a red-tailed hawk rasps down at us and follow the line of hop-prints past our bird feeder and off into the woods beyond. Dee's new word is "Wook!" and he used it about fourteen times in a row while we were outdoors to repeatedly point out the snow (pronounced "No! at the moment) and proclaim it all "Gampa's." I'm not sure which of his Grandpa's owns all our snow but he was sure pleased as punch that they'd shared with him.